Living in the desert, I often hear more complaints about the blinding sun, dusty air and heat than I hear compliments on rarely having to plan weekends around weather, the beautiful mornings and lovely evenings. Now that KULT doors are finally open, even with all it’s fantastic natural lighting, I’m missing my morning outdoor training sessions.

A recent tidbit from Women’s Health Magazine recommended exposing yourself to light early in the morning as opposed to later in the day. Apparently morning light more effectively to synchronizes your internal body clock, which means that you’re more likely to have a natural and steady sleep schedule. In turn, that steady sleep schedule helps your metabolism run more efficiently. And who doesn’t want a more efficient metabolism since it plays an important part in maintaining a healthy body composition. The second reason that morning light may help your body comp plays off of the first. By nature, morning light is much stronger than afternoon or evening light. That’s because there’s a higher amount of blue light in the morning — and blue light is the kind that has the strongest effect on your circadian rhythm, say researchers. Better rhythm, better sleep, less stress…all good things. I’ll also add we need our daily dose of sunshine to help our bodies to produce vitamin D, which is critical to health. So many of us are covered up with either protective clothing, masses of sunscreen or stay inside to avoid the rays that we’re at a very real risk of becoming deficient. Because the rays are less strong in the morning, we can help our bodies with a little less risk of premature aging. Again, who doesn’t want that?

So before school starts, my challenge for you is to get up a little earlier — you’ll need to shift your schedule soon at any rate — and spend 15 minutes outside. You can play with your children or simply enjoy your morning’s beverage of choice. Lets me know how you feel at the end of the week.